by Christi Tuit, Laura DeJong, and Justine Keuning-LaFrence
As a school counselor, an ELA teacher, and a school librarian, we have always used books to help students connect to fictional characters in order to learn things about themselves. We have found that stories can help us to see truths that are hard to face and to broaden our worldviews so that we can connect to others who may have different experiences than we have. With this in mind, we want to share some books that we think are important for helping our students understand what growing up in other cultures is like in order to help prepare them to be global citizens.
Books about Children Who Are Refugees
When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
A graphic novel released in 2020 for mid-level readers, this is a biography of Omar Mohamed, who was born in Somalia and fled to Kenya with his younger brother at the age of four when soldiers came to his family’s farm, killed his father, and destroyed their village. The story tells about what life is like as a refugee child—the waiting, the uncertainty, the struggle for education, and the persistence and hope that it takes to thrive. CT
Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
This novel in verse was released in 2019 and is appropriate for fourth through eighth grade students. It is the story of Jude, a Syrian girl who leaves her father and brother behind to move to Cincinnati and live with her mother’s relatives. We see her experience culture shock and struggle to adapt to a new way of doing school in a new language and in a place where everything feels too fast and too loud. In Jude’s words, “I am learning how to be sad and happy at the same time” (49). It is a lovely story that will help students understand a bit of the conflict in Syria and its impact on real people in an accessible way. CT
Books Addressing Timely Topics
Chirp by Kate Messner
Chirp was released in 2020 and addresses the #MeToo experience in an age-appropriate way by wrapping it in a mystery. The novel follows Mia, a middle-school girl who moves to Vermont to be closer to her beloved Gram. As Mia makes new friends, tries new activities, and tries to help Gram save her struggling cricket farm, Mia and her friends learn to find their voices when they are being belittled as girls and to trust their instincts and speak up when someone makes them feel uncomfortable. CT
Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
Released in 2018 for seventh grade readers and up, this Newbery Honor book introduces Jade, an African American high schooler who gets up early every morning to take the city bus out of her low-income neighborhood and away from her friends to attend a private school where she must figure out how to be herself in a predominantly white, upper-class school. This book should be required reading for all schools so that students who have grown up with privilege catch a small glimpse of what life is like for people around them with less power. CT
Lupe Wong Won’t Dance by Donna Barba Higuera
Higuera’s title character, Lupe, loves a cause. But after trying to get more race and ethnicity bubbles on her school tests, she has a new cause to take up: getting rid of square dancing. In order to meet her goal of becoming the first woman pitcher in Major League Baseball and meet her baseball hero, Fu Li Hernandez, she needs to get all A’s, but the square-dancing curriculum is standing in the way of her A in PE. With the (sometimes) help of her best friends, Andy and Niles, Lupe sets out to figure out how to get rid of the dreaded course. But from starting an online petition to researching the origins of the songs they dance to, every plan Lupe comes up with falls apart! Will she figure out how to rid the middle school of square dancing, get her A, and meet Fu Li Hernandez? And will she manage to keep her friendships intact? This middle-grade novel is the perfect book for talking about how kids can enact social change and fight for what they believe in. JKL
The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm
With the landing of the Perseverance Rover, Mars has recently been in the spotlight. Holm imagines what life would be like for an eleven-year-old boy who has always lived on this isolated planet. Bell, along with a dozen other Americans, survives in one of the first settlements on Mars. He loves his home, his cat, and his pod of people, but he sometimes wonders about the other countries who have colonies on the planet. Why are the adults in his community so intent on isolating themselves from the other humans on Mars? When the adults in the settlement get sick with a virus, Bell and his friends must find a way to save their family by overcoming their fear and stereotypes of others. This middle-grade novel (ages 8–12) provides a fun idea of what living on Mars might be like. During this time of Covid, it also resonates by highlighting the importance of needing and connecting with others. LDJ
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott
Middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults will find this graphic novel adaptation relating George Takei’s childhood experiences in a Japanese internment camp to be both enthralling and heartbreaking. As Takei recounts his family’s devastating experience of Executive Order 9066, Harmony Becker’s black-and-white illustrations bring the story to life. The political and personal costs of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are shown through the eyes of both Takei as a young child in the camp and Takei as an adult remembering and reflecting on how that experience shaped his view of the United States and democracy. This book is a must-read for better understanding the US during World War II and the US today. JKL
Just for Fun
City Spies by James Ponti
Sara Martinez is about to be sent to a juvenile detention center for the next seven years after hacking into the foster-care system to expose her foster parents as crooks. When a fancy lawyer shows up and gets her released to a school called FARM, she doesn’t know what to expect. Her new guardian has big plans for Sara though. He, along with four other kids, needs to stop the notorious Purple Thumb from releasing an airborne virus that will spread around the globe if they don’t succeed. When Sara and her friends aren’t infiltrating protected computers, she finds herself dangling from the edge of a thirty-foot building. This fast-paced adventure is sure to keep middle-grade readers turning pages in order to find out what happens to Sara and her band of unlikely heroes. The sequel was just published last month. LDJ
The Sanity & Tallulah series by Molly Brooks
In this science fiction meets graphic novel series, Sanity and Tallulah are best friends who happen to live in a small space station. Life in the Wilnick SS is never dull, as the girls go on adventures and get themselves into and out of trouble. In the first book, Sanity’s science experiment, a three-headed kitten, gets a bit out of control. Will the girls find the missing cat before anyone else finds out about the not-so-legal kitty? In the second book, Field Trip, the friends are excited to go on their first planetary trip. However, things start to go badly before they even leave Wilnick, when Sanity finds out her sister is one of the chaperones—and things only get worse from there! An asteroid, some space pirates, and a possibly exploding planet will make this a field trip to remember. Sanity and Tallulah’s third adventure, Shortcuts, comes out this month. Upper-elementary and middle-school fans of science fiction and graphic novels will love these breakneck adventures. JKL
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
This middle-grade novel is perfect for fans of fantasy. The whirlwind adventure takes the reader into the world of Black American and African mythology. Tristan Strong is headed to Alabama for the summer after a tragic bus accident leaves his best friend, Eddie, dead. Dreading the trip, Tristan takes Eddie’s journal with him—a journal that happens to glow. Startled awake during his first night at his grandparents house, Tristan witnesses a sticky little creature stealing the journal, but his attempt to retrieve it lands him in another world, MidPass, in the middle of a war. The characters he thought were myths and legends, like John Henry, Br’er Rabbit, and Anansi the Spider, are his allies and enemies in this new world. Tristan will have to learn how to use his storyteller abilities to get Eddie’s journal back, patch the hole in the sky, and help bring peace to MidPass. JKL
The Canyon’s Edge by Dusti Bowling
Dusti Bowling combines both prose and verse in her newest middle-grade novel. One year after Nora’s mom is shot and dies, she and her father continue to mourn. So when her dad plans a trip to Arizona, Nora hopes this trip will be a distraction—a chance to rock climb, hike, and just get away from the horrible gap in their lives. But everything goes horribly wrong, and Nora ends up trapped in the bottom of a desert canyon with scorpions and snakes to keep her company. Without food or water, she must survive the hottest days and the coldest nights. In this page-turning adventure, Bowling creatively blends prose and verse, and she also addresses grief and how to continue to live after loss. LDJ
Christi Tuit, who is the school counselor at Hudsonville Christian and once worked at the children’s bookstore Pooh’s Corner, lets her husband rope her into things like writing book reviews for the CEJ. Laura, Justine, and Christi can be found eating a socially distanced lunch together on Thursdays when they discuss life and share all things related to books.
Laura DeJong rarely goes anywhere without a young adult book in hand. As one of the middle-school librarians at Hudsonville Christian Middle School, she loves discovering new books and authors and firmly believes that books can open hearts and minds to the whole world and beyond.
Justine Keuning-LaFrence owns way too many book-themed T-shirts and possibly too many books. She is also a firm believer in the power of picture books, no matter how old you are. Justine spends her days getting books into the hands of middle schoolers as the ELAII teacher at Hudsonville Christian Middle School.
